Hometown Legend

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “When?”

  “Two months from Friday. That would be Wednesday, January 23, 2002.”

  “That’s not a minute too soon, Calvin, but you know I’ve got to ask.”

  “Why that date?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not that I plan on forgetting my anniversary, but who could forget 1/23?”

  “Let me tell you something, Calvin. First off, the answer is yes. Second, you’re never gonna forget the day you marry me.”

  • • •

  Well, it didn’t take long for that to get around, and it somehow encouraged people at American Leather. Nobody thought I’d close the factory just before I got married. Fact was, I wanted the football season and the business stuff behind us before the wedding.

  If getting past the first two rounds of the play-offs made us a big deal, you can’t believe what winning the quarterfinals did. Now we had a problem of overconfidence, of all things. It’s one thing to get a little swagger in a team, but put a hopeless little bunch into the semifinals and they think they can beat the Super Bowl champs. We were beat up, hangdog, limping, and wishing we hadn’t had so much for Thanksgiving dinner the day before. But you’d’ ve thought we’d already won the state title. Course there was the matter of two undefeated teams first. The Palm City Panthers at their place the next Friday night and, if we somehow survived that, guess who? The Rock Hill Raiders on Pearl Harbor Day.

  “I think that’s the only thing we got going for us,” Coach told me. “We’re gonna have to surprise em at dawn to have a prayer. They still ain’t been outscored for one half, going on three years now.”

  “You’re doing something I’ve never seen you do before,” I said, “and I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “I know. And I won’t do it around the kids.”

  “What?”

  “Looking ahead. We even get as far as December 7, we should thank the Lord for the day we strapped on our pads.”

  “Amen,” I said. “These kids have had an unforgettable season already.”

  “Way more than we deserve,” Coach said. “Same way I feel about Helena.”

  He could change subjects faster’n a kid with stolen cookie crumbs on his lip. “Say what?”

  “The way Rachel and them have befriended her, Cal, I’m just so grateful. You know, she’s on pace to get out of there before you get married.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “My little brother’s wife isn’t too excited about having her in the house, but we’ll find something.”

  “Bev and I ain’t gonna need but one house. Take your pick.”

  He laughed. “Been a long time since you been married, hasn’t it?”

  “Pardon?”

  He could hardly talk over his giggles. “You’d better consult your fiancée on that one, Sawyer.”

  He had a point.

  “Almost gave my house away, did you?” Bev said later.

  “I didn’t know which one I was giving away,” I said.

  “Do the math, Cal. Move a husband and a stepdaughter into my little house and I gotta move out.”

  “Well, that won’t work.”

  “Good thinking.”

  • • •

  The night we bought her ring she told me, “I’d like to take a few days’ vacation week after next.”

  “What’s your boss gonna say?”

  “You’re a laugh a minute, Calvin. Is it okay?”

  “Course. Going somewhere?”

  “Kim and I thought we might take Helena somewhere.”

  “Rachel’s gonna feel left out,” I said.

  “We already told her. She can’t get off school.”

  “You’ll be back in time for the championship game?”

  “When’s that, again?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Course we will, Cal. You expect to be in it or you want me to save seats for y’all?”

  “Truth is, sweetheart,” I said, “Coach and me been watching films of this Palm City team.”

  “I was just kidding.”

  “I’m not. They been averaging almost forty points a game.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  40

  It was a strange week, leading up to the Palm City game. The press somehow got hold a my number at the plant and we had to finally tell Ginny to not let any more of their calls through. That made it hard, cause Buster had done the same thing at school, so nobody could talk to anybody.

  More calls than I can remember were getting through to Bev, and I knew she was having to make personal arrangements for her trip and taking Helena and all. A couple times I had to pick up when she was on the other line, and once Ginny told me it was the lawyers again.

  I said, “Again?”

  She said, “Not the business ones or the bank ones or the finance ones. The other ones.”

  “We got more lawyers?” I said.

  She said, “Miss Raschke’s lawyers.”

  I pretended I knew what she was talking about and left a message for Bev. “Your lawyers called about the prenup.”

  “Very funny,” she said.

  • • •

  All week at practice, Coach is stressing offense, offense, offense. I’m going, What is this? Palm City’s gonna steamroll us if we don’t have some kinda strategy on defense.

  “What’s the old adage?” Coach says.

  “I know.”

  “Tell me. Say it.”

  “‘Best defense is a good offense.’”

  “Bingo.”

  “But you can’t let em run over us and expect to—”

  “Sawyer, get a grip. You’ve seen the films. We’ve got one kid on defense that can compete with their offense.”

  “Naters.”

  “Right. I don’t want Jackson or my nephew or Yash or anybody else trying to play over their heads when we need em so bad on offense.”

  “It’s your call.”

  “You disagree?”

  “And what if I did?” I said, laughing. “Let me call the paper and tell em I have a better idea than Buster Schuler how to play Palm City. They’ll say, ‘Scuse me? The same Buster Schuler that coaches the miracle team, the fifteen guys who are still in it with two weeks to go? You must have the wrong number.’”

  “You ought to take that on stage, Sawyer,” he said. “Vaudeville. Really.”

  Well, course he turns out to be the genius again. It’s cold on Friday night, November 30, in Palm City. We can see our breath, and we can also see the Panthers are monstrous. A lot a experts are picking them to mop the field with us and beat Rock Hill for the state title too. Our kids were standing there with their eyes bugging out. Those other kids looked like adults. Bigger than adults. I’m glad nobody asked me, cause I wouldn’t have given us a chance.

  Oh, they were good. They scored and kept scoring, but our kids—man, you should’ve been there. The place was going nuts. I’m lying if I didn’t see most of the workers from American Leather there. There were people from the hospital, the bank, everybody we ever see at Tee’s. Yeah, there were a few parents of kicked-off players probably not there, but I’d be surprised if many of our students didn’t show.

  We were matching em strike for strike. They were hurting us on the line, and our kids were staggering off the field. But it takes more than size and strength to stop a dang good passer and receivers like Upshaw and Jackson. Only thing is, Palm City was a little better by late in the fourth quarter, and when we needed a touchdown trailing 35-31, we just couldn’t punch it in. Snoot kicks a short field goal to put us within one at 35-34, but I didn’t see how we were gonna get the ball back. I was actually thinking that this is like winning, coming within one point of a team like that. Athens City ought to be proud.

  Well, Snoot kicks off a squibber, one of those short on-side kicks you pray the other team’ll bobble so you can fall on it. Doesn’t happen, but we smother the return guy at their 30. First play from scrimmage they’re just playing safe like we would do
in the same situation, and the Shermanater goes berserk, blasts into their backfield, and somehow the ball is loose. I was so happy for Brian when he fell on it. It hadn’t been easy for him, being Coach’s nephew, having the season of his life, and taking a backseat to Jackson’s miracle year.

  So here’s our chance. But course Palm City isn’t about to give in. They stop us twice and then it’s third and ten on their 30 with just a few seconds left. Coach calls time-out and tells Brian to try a short screen pass to Jackson and tells Jackson to be sure to get out of bounds to give us one more play. We’ve got one time-out left, but what if we don’t call it in time?

  I grab Buster. “Coach, I can’t believe you. Our whole season’s on the line right here. We have got to throw deep.”

  “That is exactly what they’re expecting us to do,” he says. He spins and grabs Brian by the facemask and it’s just like twelve years before. “This team needs you. Now you be a Buick!”

  With the snap of the ball, I’m dying, jumping, wanting something to happen. Brian gets off the short pass to Jackson, but Elvis is still in the backfield. Unless he gets lucky, he’s going nowhere. But he doesn’t even head for the sidelines. He’s hammered at the line of scrimmage. Brian is screaming for a time-out. We all are. I’m just sure that clock’s gonna run out. But we finally get the whistle with the clock showing one second. But fourth down at the 30? What’re we gonna do?

  I’m looking to Coach to see what he’s gonna say and I see him go pale. I follow his eyes and see Jackson is still down. The ref signals to us that we can go out there. We find Jackson moaning and holding his right wrist. “Let me see it,” I say. He lets go, then flinches when I barely touch it. “Sharp or dull pain?”

  “Sharp.”

  I look at Coach. “Busted?”

  Coach shakes his head. I can see the game, the season, and twelve years ago on his face. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  “Sorry,” Elvis said, and it sounded like he really meant it.

  “Help him up,” I tell the others.

  “What’s Snoot’s best kick?” Coach asks me.

  We’re on the 30. Add ten yards for the end zone and several for him to set up. “Half of this.”

  “Snoot!” he hollers. “Start stretching that hamstring.”

  As we pass Snoot, Elvis says, “Bail me out.”

  Snoot Nino’s a good kicker for a little guy. But he’s not a long kicker. High school kids don’t kick forty-plus-yard field goals as a rule. But here’s what it sounds like.

  The stands are silent. Then come the grunts on the line as the center snaps the ball to Brian, the holder. You hear the ball smack his hands just as the gun sounds to say time has run out. Once this play’s over, the game’s over, the season’s over for somebody.

  Then comes the sound of shoe on ball, and that’s when I knew. Somehow that little guy got the distance. Everything would be perfect if it could just stay on line.

  And then I heard all the cheering from behind us, on our side. I just stood there, shaking my head. We were going to the state championship on our own field in seven days. And our best player had a broke wrist.

  • • •

  If you’ve ever lived through one of those crazy situations where a whole town gets behind a team, you know what it was like for us that week. The David and Goliath stories got so old I’d’ve choked on one more. Banners, signs, chants, a pep rally, front page stories.

  Coach gave the guys Monday off, so they hadn’t been on a field for three days when they showed up Tuesday. Talk about your walking wounded. Elvis sat on the bench with his wrist in a tight, elastic cast. When people came by, he shied away, making sure nobody even brushed him.

  I liked that he was there—moral support and all. But the guys were dragging. I don’t think we had a player who didn’t have some kind of wound. They could run a little, but they couldn’t walk, if you follow. Worst of all was the look on their faces. It was sad, really. I wished they could’ve enjoyed what they’d done. The whole season was unreal, course, but that win Friday night—I mean, come on. That alone would make a season.

  But these guys were done. They really were. There was nothing left. Even the Shermanater, who everybody looked to when the tank was empty, had a glazed look. They were scared. They were spent. And I don’t think they had another game in them.

  I expected Coach to jump all over em, but after watching em limp through a few drills, he just called everybody over to the bench where they sat on the ground in front of Jackson.

  “Well, we’ve had a heckuva ride, boys,” he said. “I’ve told you since the first day you stepped onto this cursed field that coaching is really done before a game. Once we’re in it, I’m just there to steer. I can’t do it for ya. And I can’t get you excited either. Now you’re hurt, I know. We’re wounded. One of our limbs has been amputated. But there he sits. He’s not a quitter, and neither are any of you. If I’m wrong, let me know and I’ll just phone in the forfeit to Rock Hill.

  “Life isn’t fair. Every one of you has proof of that somewhere in you. I gave you the worst handicap when I fired most of your teammates. And I dare say we wouldn’t have come this far if we’d had those cowards with us. In the crucial, turning-point play you might’ve let up 1 percent and counted on somebody else to do what only you could do, and we would’ve lost. Think of the games we could’ve lost if any one of you had let go your grip on the rope.

  “Well, here we are, and it ain’t fair. It wasn’t fair to line you fifteen rascals up against a team like Palm City. But what did you do? You showed me. You showed them. You showed everybody. We went from being this novelty shorthanded team that won more games than we should have to now having a legitimate shot at a state title. Think of it.

  “But now there’s just fourteen a you, and—let’s face it— that one we lost was more than one-fifteenth of this team. Two weeks in a row, a challenge like this? I ought to be ashamed of myself for asking it of ya. Well, here’s my take on it. We got ourselves into this and we can get ourselves out of it. I’m dead serious. You had enough, I’ll let em know. You think Rock Hill wants to face you? They win and everybody says, well, a course! They got nothing to gain and everything to lose.

  “I gave you three days off and you still limped out here like you was through. I don’t blame ya. I really don’t. We can call it quits right here and I’ll still say I’d rather have coached this team right here than any other group a guys that ever strapped on a helmet for me. I’m gonna let you go home now, and I want you to think about it.

  “Because whoever shows up on this field tomorrow afternoon is who I’m gonna put on the field Friday night. And if you’re here, I don’t care what you look like. I don’t care where it hurts. I don’t care if I ought to have my head examined for going to the well one more time. I’m gonna use you as if you’re ready to go. Just so you know.

  “If you’ll suit up one more time for Athens City, come Friday when it’s all over, the score won’t make a bit a difference. Win, lose, or draw, you’ll still be the best team in Alabama to me. Now go on.”

  • • •

  At the crack of dawn Wednesday, Coach and Rachel and I saw Helena and Bev off. Kim was driving, and they all thought it was cute to never tell us exactly where they were going. “North,” was all they would say. Well, shoot. You can’t go far south from Athens City.

  “Don’t worry about us,” Bev whispered as I kissed her good-bye. “Helena has to be back to the center by Friday afternoon, and you know I wouldn’t miss the game.”

  When I dropped Rachel off at school I said, “You know, don’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Where they’re going.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So, what’s the big secret?”

  “What’s it worth to ya?”

  “What’s it gonna cost me?”

  “Wow, Daddy. That makes me wish I really knew.”

  • • •

  The team that showed up for practice W
ednesday and Thursday didn’t look any different than the one that had limped out there Tuesday. But they were there, at least. “Is this team beat already?” Coach asked me in the locker room Thursday night.

  “They look it, don’t they?” I said.

  “Finished, I’d say. I don’t know what else to do. They know the plays. They know how to win. It’s just whether they believe they can do it one more time.”

  As he and I left the field house I realized we didn’t look any more confident than the boys. But what can you do? Put on a happy face? The game was gonna be won by the team that wanted it the most. Well, maybe that was overstating it. That might’ve been true last week. We could want it bad as we could and there was still a team on the other side of the ball.

  Dan Ferris, the principal, was waiting outside. “Got a minute, gentlemen?” he said.

  “On our way to dinner,” Coach said. “Wanna join us?”

  “Thanks, no.”

  He stood there until the last player was gone, then we followed him back inside to the weight room. Dr. Ferris kept running his hands over the tops of his ears like he was smoothing down hair that wasn’t there. “We customarily announce the, uh, scholarship after the last game of the season. The problem is, the county board has never wavered on their decision. I have known, and I sense you two have as well, that there was really no recourse for Athens City High. Our students will be merged with Rock Hill next fall, and there are, of course, tremendous financial benefits to the school population. In anticipation of that, the state has decided—”

  “Scuse me, Doc,” Coach said. “All due respect. Could you just give me the bottom line. I’m exhausted and hungry and I got to start focusing on tomorrow.”

  “Of course, certainly. There is no scholarship fund. We’re broke. All our reserves have been frozen by the state to go into the new situation next year.”

  Coach slapped his palms to his knees and stood. “That’s it, then. Thanks for letting us know.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be, Dan. I never liked that scholarship idea anyway.”

  “But it being named for your son was meant to be—”